EASTER, CHRISTMAS AND SUNDAY
No doubt there are many well-meaning Christian people, who have been taught, and therefore believe that Easter, Christmas and Sunday are Biblical institutions, established by Christ, and kept by His apostles, and hence are very sacred.
EASTER, CHRISTMAS AND SUNDAY
WERE PAGAN HOLIDAYS - - 600 B.C. --
THE ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF SUNDAY, EASTER, AND CHRISTMAS
WELL-MEANING CHRISTIANS
It is not our intention in this article to unsettle any of God's children on what is truth or bring undue unhappiness to such as are enjoying their religious belief; but as true happiness only comes to "the man whom God corrected" (Job 5:17) and who does not get "weary of his correction" (Prov. 3:11), therefore let us every be ready to receive correction, "for whom the Lord loveth He correcteth." (Prov. 3:12)
SEMIRAMIS
Semiramis, the wife of Nimrod, became a great queen, and in order that the people would love her, she told them that she would take possession of the moon after she died just as her husband Nimrod had taken possession of the sun.
Semiramis never married again after the death of Nimrod, but a few years after the death of her husband, she gave birth to a son, on the 25th of December. This son they called Tammuz. This great queen Semiramis, claimed that the spirit of the sun, her husband Nimrod, was the father of Tammuz.
TAMUMUZ
Tammuz was considered as the son of the sun. The first letter of his name T was ever afterwards considered the symbol of sun worship.
Sun worshipers sacrificed their human offerings to the sun god, upon a wooden cross, the initial letter T of the name Tammuz.
Tammuz was a great hunter like his supposed father Nimrod. But, while yet quite a young man, he was killed by a wild boar, in the spring of the year. This caused much weeping throughout the whole kingdom. The forty days before the time of the celebration of the moon were set apart as days for weeping for Tammuz. Especially did the women take the lead in this weeping for Tammuz during these forty days.
SUN WORSHIP
The origin and character of sun-worship was, is, and always will be pagan. By whatever name or under whatever form the sun was worshipped, there was always a female divinity associated with it. As the sun was the great god, the supreme lord, and as he exerted his most glorious powers in reproduction, it was held to be the most acceptable worship for his devotes so to employ themselves and their powers. Consequently, prostitution was the chief characteristics of all sun-worship wherever found.
When God established His worship with the children of Israel in the very midst of the sun-worshipping nations round about, He required of them to make the door of their Temple always toward the east, in order that all who worshipped the Lord would in so doing turn their backs upon the sun and its worship; and that whosoever joined in the worship of the sun had first to turn his back upon the Lord. But even though the Lord was so careful in His dealing with the children, yet Israel did apostatize from Him, turn their backs towards the Temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east; and they did worship the sun toward the east. (Ezekiel 8:16)
Sunday came from this sun-worship and was dedicated to the sun god. It was on this day that the worst sun-worship features were practiced. The origin and character of Sunday, like sun-worship was, is, and always will be pagan. No matter how this child of paganism is dressed up so to make it look Christian, it is pagan in both origin and character. Sunday is the wild, solar holiday of all pagan times.
The Lord has given His children a rest day. He has finished the earth with the fullness thereof and made a Sabbath rest for the children of man. "And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." (Genesis 2:3) Of this day, He says it is the "the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." (Ex. 20:8-11) Why not do the things the Lord tells us to do, and when He wants us to do it?
Sunday laws are a natural outgrowth of sun-worship and Sunday. It is claimed that Sunday laws would make the world better, and bring in the everlasting Kingdom of God. But no matter what the claims may be, Sunday laws always were, and always will be scourge of persecution to the people of God. Sun-worship, Sunday, and Sunday laws, are carved out of the same pagan block.
CHRISTMAS
To ancient as well as modern pagan thinkers, the key to the hidden secret of the origin and preservation of the universe, lay in the mystery of sex. Two energies or agents, one an active and generative, the other a feminine, passive or susceptible one, were everywhere thought to combine for creative purposes; and heaven, and earth, sun and moon, day and night, were believed to co-operate to the production of being. Therefore all paganism is nothing else but nature worship in some form or another, and in all such false religions the deepest and most awe-inspiring attribute of nature was its power of reproduction.
Nimrod, as claimed, had taken possession of the sun. His wife, Semiramis, was the Queen of heaven, taking possession of the moon. The spirit of the sun, Nimrod, came to visit his wife Semiramis, the spirit of the moon, who conceived and gave the world Tammuz, on the 25th day of December. As the sun and the moon so this Tammuz was born in such a mysterious way through the great gods, the sun and the moon, so that the evergreen played its part to represent the wooden cross which the first letter T in his name placed before its worshipers.
When Christ came as the real promised seed to bruise the serpent's head, Gen 3:15, Tammuz, was here with his title to the promise. Since the date of Christ's birth was not known, so that God's children would not practice idolatry upon that day, Satan placed into the Christian church the day of Tammuz, December 25th, as the birthday of Christ, and the Bishops of the church accepted it, with all its Christmas presents and jocularity and revelry and drunkenness. The giving of the presents was a heathen custom. The Yule-tree and the Yule-log are remains of the old Teutonic nature worship. (Jeremiah 10:15)
No church can encourage Christmas and its spirit without going to the rocks. It is a part of sun-worship and must be given up by the Remnant People of God.
EASTER
To honor Semiramis, the wife of Nimrod, or moon goddess, they set aside a time in honor of the moon goddess. This time was to extend from the first full moon after the vernal equinox, or the twenty-first of March until the first Sunday after this full moon.
Christ came, the true Passover lamb, and was killed on the date when the Passover lambs were killed, the 14th day of the month Nisan or Abib (Ex. 12:6, 13:4) without regard to the day of the week. But Satan was ready to help the Christian church out in their dilemma for harmony. Easter Sunday was accepted as a Christian institution, and with it came all its heathen customs. "The cakes to the queen of heaven" (Jer. 44:28) became the hot cross buns. The forty days of weeping for Tammuz became lent, and at the close of Lent came Easter Sunday.
What an insult and blasphemous exchange this is! Could humanity bring any greater offense to God and His dear Son than to offer Him such pagan substitution? Sun-worship, Sunday laws, Christmas, Easter, and Halloween, etc., are pagan in origin and character. These things came to us branded with the mark of paganism and christened with the name of the sun god, when adopted and sanctified by the papal apostasy bequeathed as a sacred legacy to fallen Protestantism.
THE THIRD ANGEL'S MESSAGE
JOHN: "And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, if any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in the his forehead, or in his hand. The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture in the cup of his indignation." (Rev. 14:9-10)
JOHN: "And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God." (Rev. 15:1)
The warning of the third angel is against the worship of the beast and his image. All such as given homage or reverence unto the mandates of this image, shall drink "the wrath of God," which we find to be "the seven last plagues."
This beastly power "commands us to keep holy," Sunday, Christmas and Easter. To give homage or reverence unto these mandates of the beast, is the very worship against which we are warned in the third angel's message. No man can claim he is worshipping God while he himself is still hanging in the balance concerning the mandates of the beast and his image. No church can claim to be giving the third angel's message, while the leaders and laity are trying to bolster up any of the mandates of the beast or his image.
For its outward form and expression, the idolatry, of the beast and his image, in these mandates, have always centered in the sun. And as the Lord God wants a clean cut worship, free from any and all such pagan customs, we would call unto the saints of God to flee from their lives.
Under this theory, the worship of the sun, as represented by these mandates of the beast and his rider, was setup as a system of direct opposition to the worship of God. The Lord therefore brings this pagan theory and the whole scheme carried on under this theory, to such as test as to demonstrate the true character in His saints. The Controversy between the Worship of the beast and his image, is on, and the spirit of Elijah the prophet, which was to come again in these last days, is calling unto us "HOW LONG HALT YE BETWEEN TWO OPINIONS? IF THE LORD BE GOD, FOLLOW HIM: BUT IF BAAL (the Beast and his image), THEN FOLLOW HIM." (1 Kings 18:21)
SUMMARY
We have found in this study that, no man or church, is giving the third angel's message while following in the path of pagan customs. The message is unto us, as it was to Israel of old, "How long halt ye between two opinions."
All these pagan, insulting and blasphemous, remains of prostituted nature and sun-worship must go. CHRISTMAS and all the pagan ceremonies under the cloak of Christ, connected with it must go. The origin and character of these great pagan luminaries, no matter how they might be dressed up to disguise their real intent are contrary to the true worship of an eternal God.
Of any or all idolatry there is none so great as the idolatry which prostitutes the divine worship of the eternal God. And because this beastly power against which we are warned in the third angel's message (Rev. 14:9-10) has prostituted the worship of God through these pagan rites and ceremonies, the rider thereof, is called "MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH." (Rev. 17:5)
This rider of the beast is a mother and in her footsteps the daughters are prostituting the worship of God. It make no difference whether we are prostituting the worship of God under the mother or the daughters, the voice from heaven says we are become "the habitation of devils, --- and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." (Rev. 18:2)
In order that Jesus "might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." (Ephesians 5:27) Another voice is heard from heaven saying, "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not plagues" (Rev. 18:4), "the wrath of God" (Rev. 15:1), which every one who worships at the pagan shrine of spiritual prostitution, must drink. (Rev. 14:9-10, 16:21)
We plead with all who have "committed whoredom" (Hosea 4:17-18) to return to their God of salvation.
"THE FEAST OF DEDICATION," instead of Christmas, is gift time in Israel. It commemorates the cleansing of the Sanctuary by Judas Maccabees in 1166 B.C., after exactly 2,300 sacrifices had been missed. There was an evening and morning sacrifice, of two each day. Why not fall in line with Jerusalem and Israel instead of Rome?
See Acts 20:28; 1 Corinthians 10:32, 15:9 and Ephesians 3:14-15; also read carefully John 17:6, 11-12, 26.
BTCOG 7th Day - Missions Dept. | Believer's Tabernacle Church of God 7th Day!
